Interesting.

When I look at the two codes side-by-side with normal (full) brightness, the HDR one looks quite a bit brighter. If I dim my screen brightness substantially, the HDR one also gets a lot dimmer. Not sure if this solves that problem, though it could be an issue with my particular screen?

On my iPhone 11 at my standard brightness (around 25%) the HDR one is much brighter but if I turn my brightness to max then they both look the same.

If I dim my brightness completely the HDR does get dimmer but is still quite visible while the other is quite hard to see.

For me even at the lowest brightness on macbook it is still way brighter than the normal one. Looks about like "normal" white.

The same on an iPhone 8.

I’ve seen apps do that too.

I may make a difference with laser scanners or other more commodity hardware than smartphone cameras which are pretty amazingly good these days.

Yep, had this problem recently -- outdoor event on a sunny afternoon, and the handheld scanner was struggling.